Apparatus for indenting the opposed walls of nuts to form a lock thread section



March 2, 1965 H A. STORCH EI'AL APPARATUS FOR IfiDENTING THE OPPOSED WALLS 0F NUTS TO FORM A LOCK THREAD SECTION Filed Oct. 23, 1962 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 March 2, 1965 H. A. STORCH ETAL 3,

' APPARATUS FOR INDENTING THE QPPOSED WALLS 0F NUTS TO FORM A LOCK THREAD SECTION Filed Oct. 23, 1962 a Sheets-Sheet 2 March 2, 1965 H. A. STORCH EI'AL 3,171,143

APPARATUS FOR INDENTING THE OPPOSED WALLS 0F NUTS TO FORM A LOCK THREAD SECTION Filed Oct. 25, 1962 3 Sheets-Sheet I5 EE- w M l\ l I l 1' w {a u1 44 44 I 7 i a 1" 7 I dF/VZf/ S United States Patent 3,171,143 APPARATUS FOR INDENTING THE OPPOSED WALLS 0F NUTS TO FORM A LOCK THREAD This invention relates to apparatus for manufacturing lock nuts and particularly to mechanism adapted to indent standard nuts for the purpose of producing accurately controlled areas of distorted threads therein.

It is an object of the present invention to provide apparatus for manufacturing lock nuts which may be fabricated at a low initial cost, which may be operated at a low cost and which is capable of very high speed production.

It is another object of the present invention to provide apparatus for manufacturing lock nuts by the indentation of standard nuts in which the indentations imparted to the nuts are very accurately controlled both axially and laterally on the nut. It is still another object of the present invention to provide apparatus of the above character in which the nuts are fed into the apparatus in a highly simple and reliable manner and in which the nuts are automatically ejected from the mechanism by the operation of the indenting punch.

These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevational view, with parts broken away, of apparatus embodying the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the structure illustrated in FIG. 1;

' FIG. 3 is an enlarged sectionalview, with parts removed, of the structure illustrated in FIG. 2, taken along the line 3-3 thereof;

' FIG. 4 is a view of the structure illustrated in FIG. 3 with the punch shown in a retracted position;

FIG. 5 is a broken sectional view on an enlarged scale of the structure illustrated in FIG. 3, taken along the line 55 thereof;

-FIG. 6sis an enlarged sectional view of the structure illustrated in FIG. 3, taken along the line 66 thereof;

and

FIGS. 7 and 8 are plan and side elevational views, respectively, of a nut indented by the appaartus of the present invention.

Referring now to the drawings, FIGURE 1 illustrates a press mechanism including a frame 10 supported on a stand 12. The press frame 10 is desirably formed as a unitary casting and includes a foot or base portion 14 and an integral head portion 16. A crankshaft 18 is supported between a pair of bearing members 20 on the head 16 and is adapted to be rotated by a motor 22 which drives a belt 24 connected to a pulley 26 fastened to one end of the crankshaft 18. The crankshaft 18 includes an eccentric portion 28 on which a connecting rod 30 is mounted. A threaded stud 32 is threaded into the end of the rod 30 remote from the crankshaft 18 and is held in a selected position by a clamp 33. The stud 32 has a head 34 connected to a ram 36. The ram 36 is supported for reciprocation on a pair of of ways 38 and is provided with a bracket 40 which receives the stud head 34. By loosening the clamp 33 and rotating the stud head 34 in place in the bracket 40, the horizontal spacing between 3,171,143 Patented Mar. 2, 1965 the ram 36 and the connecting rod 30 may be adjusted and, thus, the extent of movement by the ram 36 away from the crankshaft 18 upon each reciprocation may be established. It will be seen that with each revolution of the crankshaft 18, the ram 36 will undergo one complete reciprocation with the linear travel of the ram 36 being controlled by the adjusted position of the stud 32.

The ram 36 is provided with an opening 42 (FIG. 5) at its one end for receiving an adapter member 44 which may be secured in the opening 42 by a pair of screws 46. The adapter 44 is provided with a slot 48 for the reception of an end 50 of a punch 52. A cover plate 54 is secured by fasteners 56 to the face of the adapter 44 to retain the punch end 50 in position in the slot 48. In addition, the adapter 44 is provided with a threaded opening 58 for the reception of a thread end of a wedge actuating rod 60.

The punch 52 and the wedge actuating rod 60 are supported and guided for coordinated reciprocatory movement by an assembly including a frame member 62 having a horizontally extending punch guideway 64 on one side thereof. The punch guideway 64 is open faced as the frame member 62 is formed. However, the guideway 64 is covered by a guideway cover plate 66. The frame 62 is also formed with a raised vertically extending shoulder 67 which extends upwardly from the right-hand end of the guideway 64 as seen in FIG. 3. An anvil 68 is secured to the frame 62 by means of a pair of screws 70. The anvil 68 has a vertically extending wall 72 on one side thereof which is disposed in spaced parallel relation to the shoulder 67 of the frame 62 and, together with the shoulder 67, defines therebetween a vertically extending chute 74 for the passage of a plurality of nuts W downwardly into engagement with the punch 52. The chute 74 is closed at its open side by a cover plate 76, which is fastened to the anvil 68 by the same screws 70 that hold the anvil 68 to the frame 62. As may be seen in FIG. 3, the lower end of the anvil wall 72 forms an indenting surface or shoulder 78 which is relieved as indicated at 80 to establish the desired length of the indentation axially of the nut, it being desired to indent the nuts W only at one end thereof.

The punch 52 is formed with an indenting shoulder 82 disposed in opposition to the indenting shoulder 78 of the anvil 68. The punch indenting shoulder 82 is disposed at the right-hand end of the punch 52 as viewed in FIGS. 3 and 4 and extends upwardly from a horizontal nut-supporting ledge 84. The ledge 84 extends between the indenting shoulder 82 and an ejection shoulder 86 formed at the extreme end of the punch 52 and spaced below the indenting shoulder 82.

It will be seen that when a stack of nuts W are positioned in the chute 74 with the punch 52 in a retracted position, as shown in FIG. 4, the lowermost nut will rest on a supporting plate 88 secured to the frame 62 by a screw 90. then the punch 52 is advanced forwardly to the position shown in FIG. 3, the ejection shoulder 86 will strike the lowermost nut to eject it out of alignment with the chute 74 to a position beneath a lower wall 92 of the anvil 68, where it is free to fall onto a trough 94- leading to any suitable receiving container (not shown). The punch indenting shoulder 82 is of a Width (in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the sheet in FIGS. 3 and 4) equal to the width of the indenting shoulder 78 of the anvil 68. Thus, upon the advancement of the punch 52 to the position shown in FIG. 3, the indenting shoulder 82 of the punch 52 and the indenting shoulder 7 8 of the anvil 68 will bite into and radially inwardly displace the material of the nut W which is contacted by said shoulders to form a pair of diametrically opposite indentations or depressions in the nut W.

FIGS. 7 and 8 illustrate fnut w indented by this mectk anisrn. The nut W will be seen to be of the common hex type provided. with six identical side walls 96 which are contiguous along edges 98. The indenting shou-lders 82 and 78 contact an opposite pair of the edges 98 to form a pair of indentations 109 in the outer periphery of the nut W, said indentations being centered at an opposite pair of edges 98. The indentations ltll) of the nut W radially inwardly displace the adjacent thread portions, as indicated at 192, whereby the deformed thread portions will grip the male threaded member onto which the nut W is applied to prevent accidental loosening of the nut. The type of lock nut formed by the apparatus of the present invention and illustrated in FIGS. 7 and 8 is commonly known as a prevailing torque lock nut.

After the indentation of a nut W and upon retraction of the punch 52, the indented nut is held against movement with the punch 52 by its engagement with the frame shoulder 67. As a result, the ledge 84 moves out from under the indented nut W, permitting it to fall down onto the supporting plate 88. As the punch 52 is again .advanced, the previously indented nut W is ejected from the plate 88 and the ledge 84 will pass under the nut which was immediately above the ejected nut to support that nut as an opposite pair of edges 98 thereof are indented. 'A chamfer 1s4 may be provided at the corner between the ejection shoulder 86 and supporting ledge S4 in order to eliminate possible hang-up of the punch 52 if the corner of the nut W is turned down slightly beneath the level of the supporting ledge 84. It will thus be appreciated that the punch 52 may be very rapidly reciprocated to successively eject the nut previously indented and indent another nut. The vertical arrangement of the chute 74 assures a constant supply of nuts W to the punch 52 from a feeding tube indicated at 106. The feeding tube 106 may be supplied by a hopper or a suitable part feeding mechanism (not shown). It is to be noted that when the apparatus is first placed in operation, the first nut ejected by the machine will not have been indented. The machine operator should, therefore, manually catch this first nut and return it to the hopperor other feeding mechanism being utilized.

It will, be seen that the entire frame 62 is adapted to be secured to a bed plate 108 by means of threaded fasteners 110. The fasteners 110 also serve to mount the bed plate 108 on the base 14 of the press frame 10, thereby providing a rigid support for the anvil 68 relative to the punch 52. In the design of the chute 7'4, sufiicient room must be provided axially of the nut W to permit the free flow of nuts down the chute 74. However, it is highly desirable that the nuts W be very accurately located in the direction of the thread axis at the time of their indentation. For this purpose, a wedge mechanism is provided to secure the nut W being indented against a face 112 of the chute cover plate 76. Such mechanism includes a wedge member 114 and a wedge guide member 116, which are positioned within an opening 118 formed in the frame 62 to accommodate said members. The wedge guide member 116 is secured to the frame 62 by fasteners 120 and is provided with-a slot 122 having offset portions 124. The wedge member 114' has an inclined wall 126 which slides against the bottom wall of the slot 122 .of the wedge guide member 116 and with outwardly extending flanges 128 which extend into the offset portions 124. Thus, as the wedge member 114 is reciprocated in the slot 122 of the wedge gniide member 116, a side wall 130 of the wedge 114 on the side thereof adjacent the punch 52 will be moved toward and away from a nut W resting on the punch ledge 84. The wedge member'114 is normally biased in a forward direction toward the anvil 68 by means of a coil spring 132 surrounding the wedge actuating rod 60 and seated against an annular shoulder 134 of the frame 62 so as to bear against the rear end of the wedge 114. However, the

dge actuating rod 6% passes \hxougpl \KXE. wedge and is rovided with a head 135 which bear-J fPrWard nd wall 138 of the wedge 114 umsl i tlon of Lhe Press ram 36 to retractthe wedge 114 ag h pressure of he spring 132. Upon the forward mov ment of the Punch 52,1.the wedge 114 will hold the nut to be indented against theface 112 of the cover plate 76 under the influence of the spriij 132'. However, on re traction of the punch 52, the ii/ed e 114 will also be retracted to permit an indented nut -"QR/*toz fall onto the plate 88 for ejection upon the next forward reci rocation of the punch 52. I K

The mechanism of the present invention is desirably provided with means to terminate reciprocation of the punch 52 in the event that the feeding tube 106 fails to maintain a full level of nuts W within the chute 74. For this purpose; a slot 140 is formed in the frame 62 which is open to the upper portion of the chute 74. The actuating arm 142 of a switch 144 extends through the slot 140 and the presence of a nut W in juxtaposition to the slot 140 will depress the arm 142 against a very light spring bias. However, if a nut W fails to occupy such position, the switch arm 142 will be free to move into the chute 74 and the switch 144 will be actuated. The switch 144 is desirably wired to the motor 22, so that upon such actuation of the switch 144, the operation of the motor 22 will be interrupted.

While it will be apparent that the preferred embodi ment herein illustrated is well calculated to fulfill the objects above stated, it will be appreciated. that the inven tion is susceptible to modification, variation and change without departing fromthe proper scope or fair meaning of the subjoined claims.

What is claimed is:

1. Apparatus for producing deformations in nuts in cluding a nut delivery chute, a punch having a supporting ledge onto which nuts are fed from said chute and on which nuts are supported while being deformed, an in denting surface on said punch adjacent the ledge thereof, a fixed anvil in confronting relation to said punch indent? ing surface, means for reciprocating said punch between an advanced position in which the indenting surface there of is, disposed adjacent said anvil and a retracted position in which said ledge is moved out from under the position occupied by a nut when it is indented by said indenting surface retracting movement of said punch being operable to cause an indented nut resting on said ledge to drop clear of said punch, and stripper means operable to effect removal of an indented nut from said ledge upon retracting movement of said punch.

2. Apparatus for producing deformations in nuts including a nut delivery chute, a punch having a supporb ing ledge onto which nuts are fed from said chute, an indenting surface on said punch adjacent the ledge thereof, a fixed anvil in confronting relation to said indenting surface, means for reciprocating said punch between an advanced position in which the indenting surface thereof is disposed adjacent said anvil and a retracted position in which said indenting surface is moved away from said anvil, and means engageable with an indented nut to limit movement thereof in the direction of retracting movement of the punch whereby an indented nut will drop off of said ledge upon the retraction of said punch away from said anvil.

3.. Apparatus for producing deformations in nuts including a chute, a punch having a supporting ledge onto which nuts are fed from said chute, an indenting surface on said punch adjacent the ledge thereof, a fixed anvil in confronting relation to said indenting surface, means for reciprocating said punch between an advanced position in which the indenting surface thereof is disposed adjacent said anvil and a retracted position away from saidanvil, means defining a fixed locating surface engageable with one end of a nut resting on said ledge as it is engaged on opposite sides thereof by said anvil and said indenting surface, wedge means for biasing a nut to be indented against said locating surface, and means for jointly reciprocating said punch and actuating said wedge means.

4. Apparatus for producing deformations in nuts including a vertically extending chute, a punch having a supporting ledge onto which nuts in said chute will fall by gravity in one position of the punch, an indenting surface on said punch adjacent the ledge thereof, a fixed anvil in confronting relation to said indenting surface, means for reciprocating said punch between an advanced position in which the indenting surface thereof is disposed adjacent said anvil and a retracted position in which said ledge is moved out from under the position occupied by a nut when it is indented by said indenting surface and means engageable with an indented nut resting on said ledge operable to prevent movement of said nut with said punch upon retractive movement of said punch whereby said ledge will move clear of said nut to permit said nut to drop out of the position it occupied when indented.

5. Apparatus for producing deformations in nuts including a vertically extending chute, a punch having a supporting ledge onto which nuts are fed from said chute, an indenting surface on said punch adjacent the ledge thereof, a fixed anvil in confronting relation to said indenting surface, means for reciprocating said punch between an advanced position in which the indenting surface thereof is disposed adjacent said anvil and a retracted position in which said ledge is moved out from under the position occupied by a nut when it is indented by said indenting surface, a supporting surface onto which an indented nut will drop upon the retraction of said punch, and a nut ejection shoulder on said punch engageable with a nut resting on said supporting surface for displacing the same from said supporting surface upon the advancement of said punch toward said anvil.

6. Apparatus for producing deformations in nuts including a vertically extending chute, a punch having a supporting ledge onto which nuts in said chute will fall by gravity in one position of the punch, an indenting surface on said punch adjacent the ledge thereof, a fixed anvil in confronting relation to said indenting surface, a rotary press having a crankshaft and a reciprocal ram driven by said crankshaft, adjustable means between said crankshaft and said ram for varying the travel of said ram, means connecting said ram to said punch for movement of said punch toward and away from said anvil, and means engageable with an indented nut resting on said ledge operable to prevent movement of said nut with said punch upon the movement of said punch away from said anvil.

7. Apparatus for producing deformations in nuts including a chute, a punch having a supporting ledge onto which nuts are fed from said chute, an indenting surface on said punch adjacent the ledge thereof, a fixed anvil in confronting relation to said indenting surface, means for reciprocating said punch between an advanced position in which the indenting surface thereof is disposed adjacent said anvil and a retracted position away from said anvil, means defining a fixed locating surface engageable with one end of a nut resting on said ledge as it is engaged on opposite sides thereof by said anvil and said indenting surface, wedge means for biasing a nut to be indented against said locating surface, means for reciprocating said punch, a spring operable to bias said wedge in a direction forcing a nut to be indented against said locating surface, and elongated means reciprocated with said punch for retracting said wedge against said spring upon the retraction of said punch.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,536,198 5/25 Emery l072 WILLIAM W. DYER, JR., Primary Examiner. ANDREW R. JUHASZ, Examiner. 

1. APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING DEFORMATIONS IN NUTS INCLUDING A NUT DELIVERY CHUTE, A PUNCH HAVING A SUPPORTING LEDGE ONTO WHICH NUTS ARE FED FROM SAID CHUTE AND ON WHICH NUTS ARE SUPPORTED WHILE BEING DEFORMED, AN INDENTING SURFACE ON SAID PUNCH ADJACENT THE LEDGE THEREOF, A FIXED ANVIL IN CONFRONTING RELATION TO SAID PUNCH INDENTING SURFACE, MEANS FOR RECIPROCATING SAID PUNCH BETWEEN AN ADVANCED POSITION IN WHICH THE INDENTING SURFACE THEREOF IS DISPOSED ADJACENT SAID ANVIL AND A RETRACTED POSITION IN WHICH SAID LEDGE IS MOVED OUT FROM UNDER THE POSITION OCCUPIED BY A NUT WHEN IT IS INDENTED BY SAID INDENTING SURFACE RETRACTING MOVEMENT OF SAID PUNCH BEING OP- 